Broker liability · Case tracker
Freight Broker Liability Case Tracker
Court decisions shaping carrier selection, negligent-selection liability, and broker responsibility.
LAST UPDATED · OCT 21, 2026
Courts have not given freight brokers a carrier-vetting checklist. But each decision adds another piece to the picture of what brokers may be expected to know, evaluate, document, and respond to. This page tracks the significant U.S. decisions and litigation developments, keeps each case's status current, and separates three things that industry coverage often blurs: what a court actually held, what plaintiffs alleged, and what we think the cases imply for broker operations. It is an informational reference, not legal advice.
What the cases are telling brokers so far
- Broker negligent-selection claims can proceed. In Montgomery, the Supreme Court unanimously held that federal preemption is not a categorical defense to state-law claims that a broker negligently selected an unsafe carrier.
- That holding applies nationwide. A Supreme Court holding binds every circuit on its own force. Twelve days after Montgomery, the Court also declined to review Cox v. Total Quality Logistics — an early sign of how quickly the question closed. Within weeks, federal appellate courts in the Fourth Circuit (Fuelling v. Echo Global Logistics) and Eleventh Circuit (Hodge v. Molson Coors / Coyote Logistics) vacated pre-Montgomery broker dismissals and sent negligent-selection claims back for further proceedings — neither court deciding the broker was negligent, only that the preemption exit was gone.
- Montgomery opens the courthouse door; it does not establish broker negligence. In Miller v. Agramon, a Colorado federal judge recognized that Montgomery had removed TQL's preemption defense and dismissed the claims against TQL anyway — the complaint pleaded only generic "defendants" allegations and never established the principal-agent relationship its negligence theories required. The dismissal was without prejudice, but it shows removing the preemption shield still leaves plaintiffs to prove every element of a state-law claim.
- Not every claim against a broker survives. Montgomery turns on the FAAAA's motor-vehicle safety exception. State-law claims tied to a broker's prices, routes, or services that are unrelated to safety remain preempted — as Glencore shows, where negligence claims over a stolen copper shipment stayed preempted because the alleged failure concerned cargo theft rather than motor-vehicle safety.
- Authority and a favorable rating may not be the whole inquiry. The allegations the Supreme Court let proceed in Montgomery described a Conditional-rated carrier with claimed deficiencies behind the rating — which is why plaintiffs now plead what was visible beyond bare authority and insurance. No court has held how far a broker must look.
- Selection risk and control risk are different exposures. Negligent selection asks whether choosing this carrier was reasonable. A separate line of theories — borrowed employee in Lipe, statutory employer in Crane — asks whether the broker directed the work closely enough to answer for the driver. The second is where Lipe's broker exposure actually came from — and in Rekshynskyj, a broker won dismissal of the negligent-selection claim while the negligence and vicarious-liability theories against it continued. Defeating the selection claim is not the same as leaving the case.
- Who actually hauled the load — and what the broker knew about subcontracting — matters. Crane involves freight that passed through a chain of hands before reaching the truck that crashed. In Hardy, a federal judge found evidence enough for a jury to weigh whether a broker was negligent for continuing to use a carrier it knew was handing loads off without broker authority. Together, the cases put the vetted-carrier / actual-carrier gap squarely in the liability discussion.
- No court has prescribed a checklist or a refresh interval. What a broker can control is a written selection policy, consistently applied, with a preserved record of each decision — which is also the evidence these cases turn on.
Cases at a glance
| Case | Court · Date | Status | Why brokers should care |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miller v. C.H. Robinson | 9th Cir. · Sep 2020 | REPORTED SETTLED | First appellate decision letting a negligent-selection claim past preemption. |
| Ye v. GlobalTranz | 7th Cir. · Jul 2023 | ABROGATED | The high-water mark of the preemption defense — no longer good law. |
| Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II | U.S. Supreme Court · May 14, 2026 | REMANDED | Ended preemption as an automatic shield. The foundational decision. |
| Glencore v. Schneider National | E.D. La. · Sep 25, 2026 | TORT CLAIMS PREEMPTED | A limit on Montgomery: cargo-theft negligence claims stayed preempted; only the contract claim survived. |
| Haney v. Ismatov | E.D. Tex. · Oct 2, 2026 | MOTION TO DISMISS DENIED | Montgomery's reasoning applied to claims against shipper-side defendants, not just brokers. |
| Cox v. Total Quality Logistics | Cert denied · May 26, 2026 | CERT DENIED | The preemption question closed quickly after Montgomery. |
| Lipe v. Lupus Superior | Dallas County, Tex. · Jul 23 / Oct 16, 2026 | JUDGMENT ENTERED · APPEAL PLANNED | Judgment of roughly $711M with interest — driven by borrowed-employee and control findings, not by a finding that the broker selected the carrier negligently. |
| Crane v. Penske Trans. Mgmt. | 5th Cir. · Aug 4, 2026 | REMANDED | Montgomery is already reviving dismissed broker claims; subcontracting chains are in focus. |
| Hardy v. Singh | D. Nev. · Aug 11, 2026 | SUMMARY JUDGMENT DENIED | Evidence that a broker knew its carrier subcontracted loads without broker authority was enough to keep a negligence claim alive. |
| Rekshynskyj v. J.B. Hunt | D. Ariz. · Aug 28, 2026 | PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT | Negligent-selection claim dismissed for want of a response — but the negligence and vicarious-liability claims survived, and whether the company acted as broker or carrier stayed disputed. |
| Miller v. Agramon | D. Colo. · Sep 8, 2026 | DISMISSED WITHOUT PREJUDICE | First notable post-Montgomery broker win: losing the preemption defense did not relieve the plaintiff of pleading the elements of a state-law claim. |
How the law got here
- SEP 2020Miller — Ninth Circuit lets a negligent-selection claim past FAAAA preemption.
- 2023Ye (7th Cir.) and Aspen v. Landstar (11th Cir.) go the other way. A circuit split hardens.
- 2025Cox (6th Cir.) sides with Miller. In October, a Florida appellate court breaks with the federal preemption line in Simon v. Coyote Logistics, and the Supreme Court grants review in Montgomery.
- MAR 4, 2026Montgomery argued at the Supreme Court.
- MAY 14, 2026Montgomery decided, 9–0: negligent-selection claims are not categorically preempted.
- MAY 26, 2026Cert denied in Cox — the question is settled nationwide.
- MAY–JUN 2026Fuelling (4th Cir., May 18) and Hodge (11th Cir., Jun 11) — appellate courts vacate pre-Montgomery broker dismissals and remand negligent-selection claims.
- JUL 23, 2026Lipe — Dallas County jury returns a $604M advisory verdict including a broker, on borrowed-employee and control findings.
- AUG 4, 2026Crane — Fifth Circuit revives claims against Penske entities, citing Montgomery.
- AUG 11, 2026Hardy — Nevada federal court sends a double-brokering negligence claim toward trial.
- AUG 28, 2026Rekshynskyj — Arizona federal court dismisses a negligent-selection claim against a broker but lets negligence and vicarious-liability theories proceed.
- SEP 25, 2026Glencore — Louisiana federal court holds cargo-theft negligence claims still preempted; only the contract claim survives.
- OCT 2, 2026Haney — Texas federal court applies Montgomery's reasoning to claims against shipper-side defendants.
- OCT 16, 2026Lipe — trial court enters judgment on the verdict; with interest, roughly $711M. Appeal planned.
- SEP 8, 2026Miller v. Agramon — Colorado federal court dismisses the claims against TQL despite acknowledging Montgomery removed the broker's preemption defense; dismissal without prejudice.
Case-by-case analysis
Montgomery v. Caribe Transport II, LLC
The issue. Whether the FAAAA — the federal statute preempting state laws related to a broker's prices, routes, or services — categorically blocks state-law claims that a broker negligently selected an unsafe motor carrier.
What happened. Shawn Montgomery suffered catastrophic injuries when a truck operated by Caribe Transport II struck his parked tractor-trailer on an Illinois highway. C.H. Robinson had arranged the shipment as broker. The district court dismissed the negligent-selection claim as preempted under Seventh Circuit precedent, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed. Other circuits had allowed similar claims, and the Supreme Court took the case to resolve the split.
Unanimously (Barrett, J.; Kavanaugh, J., concurring, joined by Alito, J.): the FAAAA's safety exception — preserving state safety regulatory authority "with respect to motor vehicles" — covers a negligent-selection claim against a broker. Requiring ordinary care in selecting a carrier concerns the trucks that end up on the highway. The claim is not preempted.
The Court did not decide whether C.H. Robinson was negligent, and it did not create a carrier-vetting checklist. The case was remanded; the duty of care comes from state negligence law, case by case.
That the carrier held a Conditional safety rating with documented deficiencies in driver qualification, hours-of-service compliance, inspection and maintenance, and crash history — and that the broker knew or should have known selecting it was unreasonably dangerous.
A broker should be prepared to show that selection involved more than confirming authority and insurance. Check: safety rating, visible safety history, authority, insurance, carrier identity. When: at qualification, refreshed so it is reasonably current at selection. Document: sources consulted, findings, concerns and their disposition, reviewer, and the basis for approval.
- Opinion of the Court (PDF) — supremecourt.gov
- Docket and history — SCOTUSblog
- Deeper analysis: What the Montgomery decision means for freight brokers
LAST REVIEWED AUG 18, 2026
Lipe v. Lupus Superior, LLC, et al.
The issue. The first major trial outcome involving a freight broker after Montgomery — though not, as first reported, a test of negligent selection. The questions that carried the broker exposure were whether the carrier's driver could be treated as working for the broker, and whether the broker controlled the details of the trip.
What happened. In March 2021, a tractor-trailer operated by carrier Lupus Superior ran into stopped traffic on Interstate 20 in Mississippi, triggering a multi-vehicle fire. Three people died, including the driver; two others were seriously injured. C.H. Robinson had brokered the load. In July 2026, a Dallas County jury returned a $604 million compensatory verdict against the driver, the carrier, and the broker.
Judge Dianne Jones upheld the July verdict of $604,025,000 and added reported prejudgment interest of roughly $107 million — accruing at 6.75% — bringing the judgment to approximately $711 million. C.H. Robinson disputes the findings and has said it remains confident in its appeal. The judgment rests on the jury's negligence and borrowed-employee findings, not on a finding of negligent carrier selection, and it is a trial-court judgment rather than appellate precedent. Its final amount and enforceability remain open.
Negligence by all three defendants, allocated 45% to the driver, 32% to Lupus Superior, and 23% to C.H. Robinson. Separately — and this is where the broker's real exposure sits — the jury found the driver was C.H. Robinson's borrowed employee, operating on a special mission subject to the broker's control. Under Texas law that finding can pull the driver's share onto the broker, which is how a 23% allocation becomes exposure approaching the full award.
The jury did not return a finding that C.H. Robinson negligently selected Lupus Superior, and it declined the negligent-undertaking question. Transportation counsel analyzing the charge read the verdict as a control and vicarious-liability outcome rather than a post-Montgomery negligent-selection verdict. The July verdict was advisory at the time; judgment was entered on it in October, as noted above.
Plaintiffs pointed to safety-measurement signals — reported as Unsafe Driving and Hours-of-Service Compliance intervention indicators — sitting behind the carrier's federal rating. The jury returned no selection-based finding on that evidence, so it establishes nothing about what a broker must review.
The broker's stated defense: the carrier held a Satisfactory FMCSA rating (which remained Satisfactory after a federal review of the accident), was federally authorized, and had delivered roughly 270 prior loads for the company without incident.
Lipe points at an exposure separate from carrier selection: control. Qualification standards and load-specific requirements govern who is eligible to haul. What reportedly mattered here was evidence about how the trip was run — tracking, check-in requirements, and operational instruction. Those are different categories, and a brokerage may want them to stay that way. Documenting a selection decision is not the same as directing an independent carrier's work, and the second is a question for counsel rather than a vetting practice.
- Verdict, allocation, and theories — FreightWaves
- Advisory status per the company's Form 8-K — Logistics Management
- Planned appeal — Transport Topics
- Analysis of the jury questions and the control theory — International Trade & Supply Chain Insights
- Fault allocation and the borrowed-employee finding — Saxton & Stump
- The broker's response to the verdict — C.H. Robinson
- Judgment entered on the verdict, Oct 16 — FreightWaves
LAST REVIEWED OCT 21, 2026
Crane v. Penske Transportation Management, LLC
The issue. Whether claims against a broker and an affiliated carrier — both previously dismissed on summary judgment — could proceed after Montgomery, in a case where the freight changed hands several times before the crash.
What happened. A December 2018 Texas crash killed Lydon Dean Meyer when a truck jackknifed across the road. The freight had traveled through a chain: the shipper hired Penske Logistics, which used affiliate broker Penske Transportation Management (PTM); PTM engaged carrier Liberty Lane, which subcontracted to OK Trans, whose driver was behind the wheel. The district court had dismissed PTM on FAAAA preemption and Penske Logistics on the ground that it wasn't the driver's statutory employer.
Both summary judgments reversed. The broker's preemption dismissal could not stand after Montgomery. And treating Penske Logistics as a motor carrier that assumed control and responsibility for the equipment, the court held it could be the driver's statutory employer — even absent a direct arrangement with the subcontracted carrier — leaving vicarious liability to be litigated. The court did not decide that either defendant is liable; the case was remanded.
A difference between the carrier vetted and the carrier actually hauling the load can create additional exposure. Subcontracting chains can introduce both safety concerns and liability theories that reach up the chain. Operational implication: have a policy addressing unauthorized rebrokering or carrier substitution, and preserve known evidence when it comes to light. This is not a suggestion that verifying the physical hauling authority on every load is an established requirement — no court has held that.
- Opinion, No. 25-40012 (5th Cir. Aug 4, 2026) — Justia
- Decision analysis — FreightWaves
LAST REVIEWED AUG 18, 2026
Hardy v. Singh, et al.
The issue. Whether a broker could be negligent for continuing to tender freight to a carrier it knew had been subcontracting loads despite lacking broker authority — where the load ended up hauled by a different carrier whose driver caused a fatal crash.
What happened. AONE Brokerage booked a load of hay and tendered it to Lucky Transport. Lucky did not haul it; the load went to GRK Transport, whose owner, Bhupinder Singh, was driving when the truck skidded on a Nevada two-lane highway in July 2022 and struck an oncoming pickup, killing one occupant and injuring another. Both sides moved for summary judgment; on August 11, 2026, Judge Anne Traum denied the cross-motions, keeping the negligence claims headed toward trial.
The court did not find AONE negligent — it held that a jury could. The record, as the court described it, included evidence that AONE kept doing business with Lucky knowing Lucky was subcontracting loads, that federal regulations barred Lucky from brokering without a license, and that the alleged breach could be the legal cause of the injuries. The court rejected, at this stage, AONE's argument that Lucky's and the driver's intervening acts cut off causation as a matter of law, observing that "illegal double brokering can put more high-risk drivers on the road."
An important limit: the court did not hold that using a carrier that sometimes subcontracts is automatically negligence, and it prescribed no double-brokering detection procedure. This is a district-court ruling that binds no other court; it held only that the evidence was sufficient for the claim to survive summary judgment.
A broker's responsibility may not end with approving the carrier named on the rate confirmation. What you already know about a carrier's tendency to hand freight off can itself become part of the selection record. Consider: prior indications that a carrier subcontracts or double-brokers, weighed as part of the selection decision, and a policy for responding when unauthorized substitution comes to light. Document: what was known about the carrier's subcontracting history, and how any discrepancy that surfaced was resolved. As with Crane, no court has held that verifying the physical hauling authority on every load is required.
- Order denying cross-motions for summary judgment, Hardy v. Bhupinder Singh, et al., No. 3:23-cv-00207 (D. Nev. Aug. 11, 2026) — court docket via Justia (order available via PACER)
- Decision coverage and the court's reasoning — FreightWaves
LAST REVIEWED AUG 24, 2026
Rekshynskyj v. J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc.
The issue. What is left of a case against a transportation company once the negligent-selection claim is gone — and whether a company licensed as both a broker and a motor carrier was acting as one or the other on the load in question.
What happened. A June 2022 rear-end collision on US 93 in Arizona pushed the plaintiffs' vehicle into oncoming traffic, injuring occupants of three vehicles whose suits were consolidated. The freight moved through a chain: shipper Funko tendered the load to J.B. Hunt, which contracted with carrier Alpha Lion Trucking, which in turn handed it to Iron Line Logistics, whose driver was at the wheel of a tractor registered to Alpha Lion. J.B. Hunt moved for summary judgment on all claims against it.
Dismissed: the negligent-selection claim, the negligent hiring/training/supervision/retention claim, and a negligent-maintenance theory. The selection claim failed for a procedural reason worth being precise about — J.B. Hunt argued there was no evidence it breached the standard of care, and the plaintiffs' response never addressed the argument. Judge Humetewa noted the plaintiffs "might have had a colorable negligent selection claim" but did not carry their burden. The court made no finding that the selection was reasonable.
Survived: the ordinary negligence claim and the vicarious-liability theory. Applying Miller and Montgomery, the court held that even if J.B. Hunt were a broker, the FAAAA's safety exception saves negligence claims arising out of motor-vehicle accidents — and that this reasoning is not limited to negligent-selection claims.
Left for trial: whether J.B. Hunt acted as a broker or a motor carrier. Its carrier confirmation described it as a licensed property broker, but the invoice carried its motor-carrier number and a fuel surcharge, the bill of lading named it as the carrier, and an employee emailed the shipper that "our driver" had been in an accident. The court found the conflicting evidence a question for a factfinder.
A documented selection decision addresses one category of exposure, not every theory a plaintiff can plead. Two things in this record were not vetting questions at all: how the company described its own role across the invoice, bill of lading, and correspondence, and whether it had reason to know its carrier would hand the load to someone else. The first is a documentation and contracting matter for counsel. The second is the subcontracting question Hardy raises. Neither adds a safety check to carrier selection.
- Order on summary judgment, No. CV-23-08535-PCT-DJH (D. Ariz. Aug. 28, 2026) — full text via Justia
LAST REVIEWED OCT 15, 2026
Miller v. Agramon, et al.
The issue. Whether a negligent-selection complaint against a broker survives a motion to dismiss once Montgomery has taken the preemption defense off the table — that is, whether the plaintiff actually pleaded the state-law elements the claim requires.
What happened. Deann Miller sued much of the supply chain after a fatal Colorado crash in which steel came off a truck, adding broker TQL and two steel customers to an amended complaint alongside the driver and carrier Monique Trucking. TQL had asserted FAAAA preemption, then withdrew it after Montgomery. On September 8, 2026, Judge Nina Wang dismissed the claims against TQL (and the two customers) — without prejudice, so the plaintiff may try to replead. (This is the same broker whose cert petition the Supreme Court declined in Cox — a reminder that losing the preemption argument in one case and defeating a poorly pleaded one in another are not in tension.)
The court dismissed on the pleadings, not on preemption — it acknowledged that Montgomery had abrogated the old preemption defense. The negligence theories failed because the complaint did not plead TQL-specific facts: it relied on generic references to "defendants" and never established a principal-agent relationship between TQL and either the driver or Monique Trucking, which the vicarious-liability and negligent-hiring theories required. A negligent-undertaking theory failed too, because the complaint did not identify a particular safety duty TQL had affirmatively taken on.
What this did not establish: any safe harbor for brokers. This is a district-court ruling at the pleading stage under Colorado law, and the dismissal was without prejudice. It decided that this complaint was inadequately pleaded — not that TQL's carrier selection was reasonable.
Montgomery lets brokers be sued; it does not make them liable. A plaintiff still has to prove duty, breach, causation, and the right relationship under state law — and here a broker prevailed at the threshold. That cuts both ways for operations: the same record that answers "how did you select this carrier, and can you prove it" is what turns a well-pleaded case into a defensible one. The defense is a documented, reasonable, consistently applied selection decision — not the hope that a claim never gets filed.
- Order granting the motions to dismiss, Miller v. Agramon, et al., No. 1:25-cv-00997 (D. Colo. Sep. 8, 2026) — court docket via Justia (order available via PACER)
- Decision coverage and the court's reasoning — FreightWaves
LAST REVIEWED SEP 15, 2026
Haney v. Ismatov, et al.
Why it is here. Montgomery was about a broker. This ruling applied its reasoning to claims against companies on the shipper side of a transportation arrangement.
Claims arising from a January 2025 truck crash — pleaded as negligent hiring and supervision, respondeat superior, and negligent entrustment — are not preempted by the FAAAA, because the motor-vehicle safety exception applies. The court also found the complaint pleaded enough to proceed past the pleading stage, and denied the motion to dismiss.
What this did not decide: nothing about whether any defendant actually selected a carrier negligently, controlled the driver, or entrusted a trailer improperly. Those remain allegations. This is one district court's ruling, not a rule about shipper liability.
The post-Montgomery question — what did you know about this carrier, and how did you decide — is not necessarily limited to parties that call themselves brokers. Anyone arranging transportation may face it, including shippers arranging directly and logistics providers performing several roles at once.
LAST REVIEWED OCT 21, 2026
Glencore Ltd. v. Schneider National Carriers, Inc.
Why it is here. It marks a boundary of Montgomery: a negligence claim against a transportation intermediary that the safety exception did not save.
Where fraudulent use of shipping instructions allegedly enabled the theft of roughly $170,000 in copper, the state-law tort claims were preempted by the FAAAA. The alleged negligence concerned cargo theft, not motor-vehicle safety, so the safety exception did not apply. The breach-of-contract claim survived, and the court declined to decide at the pleading stage that the defendant acted only as a broker.
Choosing an unsafe carrier and choosing a fraudulent one are not the same legal claim, even when the same review would have caught both. Safety screening and fraud screening can share a workflow, but they sit under different legal theories — and a contract may carry weight where a tort claim does not.
LAST REVIEWED OCT 21, 2026
Cox v. Total Quality Logistics, Inc.
The issue. The same preemption question as Montgomery, reaching the Supreme Court from the circuit that had allowed negligent-hiring claims to proceed.
The Sixth Circuit had held the safety exception saves negligent-hiring claims against brokers. Twelve days after Montgomery, the Supreme Court declined to review, leaving that ruling intact. To be precise about what does the legal work here: it is Montgomery — which binds every circuit — that forecloses the categorical preemption defense nationwide. A cert denial sets no precedent and approves nothing, and the denial itself decides nothing about any broker's negligence.
- Cox v. Total Quality Logistics, Inc., 142 F.4th 847 (6th Cir. 2025); cert. denied, No. 25-145 (U.S. May 26, 2026)
- Analysis of the denial's effect — Hinshaw & Culbertson
LAST REVIEWED AUG 18, 2026
Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.
The issue. The first federal appellate test of whether the FAAAA's safety exception saves a negligent-selection claim against a broker.
What happened. A truck hauling a Robinson-brokered load crashed into Allen Miller's vehicle in wintry conditions, leaving him quadriplegic. He alleged the broker negligently selected the carrier.
The safety exception preserves the claim — a negligent-selection suit is an exercise of the state's safety regulatory authority with respect to motor vehicles. The Supreme Court declined review, and the case was later reported settled. Miller supplied the reasoning Montgomery ultimately adopted nationwide, and its discussion of publicly available safety data still shapes how plaintiffs frame what a broker "should have known."
- Miller v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc., 976 F.3d 1016 (9th Cir. 2020), cert. denied (2022)
LAST REVIEWED AUG 18, 2026
Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc.
The issue. The same question, answered the other way: the Seventh Circuit held negligent-hiring claims against brokers were preempted, reading the safety exception not to reach them. The Eleventh Circuit reached a similar result in Aspen American Insurance v. Landstar Ranger (2023). Together these decisions made the preemption defense a reliable early exit for brokers in those circuits — and created the split Montgomery resolved.
No longer good law on this question. Montgomery rejected the categorical-preemption reading. Ye matters now mainly as history: it explains why so many pending cases were dismissed and are being revived.
- Ye v. GlobalTranz Enterprises, Inc., 74 F.4th 453 (7th Cir. 2023); Aspen Am. Ins. Co. v. Landstar Ranger, Inc., 65 F.4th 1261 (11th Cir. 2023)
LAST REVIEWED AUG 18, 2026
What the cases collectively suggest brokers should check
No court has ordered this list. It is what recurs across the holdings, allegations, and verdicts above — the information these cases examine when a selection is questioned.
| Carrier information | Why it appears relevant | Where it appears |
|---|---|---|
| Operating authority & insurance | Baseline legal eligibility — necessary, but rarely the whole inquiry | Multiple cases |
| FMCSA safety rating | An express safety indicator — a Conditional rating was central to Montgomery's allegations | Montgomery |
| Safety-measurement signals behind the rating | Unsafe-driving and hours-of-service indicators are what plaintiffs plead behind a rating; no court has held they must be reviewed | Montgomery, Lipe (pleaded, not decided) |
| Inspection, maintenance & crash history | Alleged as what the broker should have seen | Montgomery, Miller |
| Driver qualification | Alleged deficiency in the foundational case | Montgomery |
| Known subcontracting / rebrokering behavior | Evidence that a carrier has previously handed loads to others can become relevant to the broker's selection decision | Hardy, Crane |
| Your own history with the carrier | Cited by the defense in Lipe (≈270 prior loads) — your internal record is evidence, whichever way it points | Lipe |
| Degree of control over the load | Borrowed-employee and statutory-employer findings turned on control, not paperwork labels | Lipe, Crane |
Two things these cases raise are deliberately not on this list, because they are not carrier-safety checks: how consistently a company describes its own role as broker or carrier across the load paperwork (Rekshynskyj), and how much it directs the carrier's work (Lipe, Crane). Both are questions for counsel and operations rather than items to review about a carrier.
For the operational version of this list — grouped, with what to preserve — see what brokers should check before every load.
How current should the information be?
No court has established a universal schedule requiring carrier information to be refreshed every 24 hours, 30 days, or before every shipment. The recurring question is different: was the information reasonably current when the carrier was selected for this load — and can you show it? Our full treatment of cadence, from onboarding through post-commitment preservation, is here: how often should freight brokers recheck a carrier?
What the courts have not decided
- No universal carrier-vetting checklist.
- No mandated data sources or vendors.
- No prescribed refresh frequency.
- No ruling that any specific process avoids liability — reasonableness is decided case by case, under state law.
- And Lipe is not settled law: a trial-court judgment has now been entered, but it remains subject to appellate review and is not binding precedent.
Cases we're watching
J.B. Hunt / Borderlanders — D. Ariz. A different Arizona case from Rekshynskyj above: a later crash, different carriers, and still awaiting a ruling. J.B. Hunt has asked the court for summary judgment in a negligent-selection case arising from an October 2023 crash involving a carrier its brokerage arm engaged. Plaintiffs allege the broker ignored the carrier's history of safety-assessment alerts, crashes, and inspection violations, and that it held itself out to the shipper as the carrier; J.B. Hunt responds that it acted solely as a broker and that, under its carrier agreement, the carrier alone hired, supervised, and dispatched its driver. No court has ruled on any of this — these are allegations and defense arguments awaiting a decision on the pending motion. We are tracking it because a substantive ruling could help define how far a broker must look beyond federal operating status, and where the broker/carrier line sits when a shipper believes it hired the party in front of it.
Your written policy, applied to current facts on every load, with the decision sealed into a record you can produce years later — that is the operational answer to the questions these cases ask.
View a sample compliance record Watch the 60-second demoMethodology & sources
We track significant U.S. court decisions, orders, and litigation developments bearing on freight-broker negligent selection, carrier vetting, and related vicarious-liability theories. Case facts are drawn from court opinions and filings where available, and from named trade and legal press otherwise; every entry links or cites its sources. We keep three things visibly separate: holdings (what a court decided), allegations (claimed but not established), and implications (our operational reading, which is not law). Each entry carries a status badge and a last-reviewed date, and is updated in place as its case develops — corrections are noted in the update history below. This page is published by CarrierBasis, a carrier-vetting software product of NewWay Digital; that is a commercial interest you should weigh. Nothing here is legal advice. The tracker is researched and maintained by Wayne Kullman, founder of CarrierBasis — media and correction inquiries: contact@workanewway.com.
Update history
- OCT 21, 2026 — Lipe judgment and two added rulings. The Dallas County court entered judgment on the July verdict on Oct 16; with reported prejudgment interest it stands at roughly $711 million, and an appeal is planned — the entry's status, the glance table, and the "not decided" note were updated, and the explanation that the jury made no negligent-selection finding is unchanged. Added Haney v. Ismatov (E.D. Tex., Oct 2), where Montgomery's reasoning reached claims against shipper-side defendants, and Glencore v. Schneider National (E.D. La., Sep 25), where cargo-theft claims remained preempted.
- OCT 15, 2026 — Added Rekshynskyj v. J.B. Hunt (D. Ariz., Aug 28), a ruling we had missed: the broker won dismissal of the negligent-selection claim while negligence and vicarious-liability theories survived, and its broker-or-carrier role was left for trial. Note that this is a separate case from the J.B. Hunt / Borderlanders matter under "Cases we're watching," which is still undecided.
- SEP 29, 2026 — Lipe correction. After published reviews of the jury charge, we revised this entry: the verdict did not establish negligent carrier selection, and the broker's exposure rests on the jury's borrowed-employee and special-mission findings. The glance-table summary, the rating-related conclusion, and two check-matrix rows were corrected to match, and the case's operational implication now addresses control rather than vetting.
- SEP 15, 2026 — Added Miller v. Agramon (D. Colo., Sep 8) — the first notable post-Montgomery broker win — as a tracked case, with a new conclusion that Montgomery opens the courthouse door without establishing negligence, plus glance-table and timeline entries.
- AUG 26, 2026 — Added Fuelling (4th Cir.) and Hodge (11th Cir.) to the nationwide-reach conclusion and timeline as evidence that Montgomery is actively reopening broker dismissals across circuits; not added as separate case entries, since both are procedural remands rather than new guidance on carrier selection.
- AUG 24, 2026 — Added Hardy v. Singh (D. Nev. summary-judgment denial, Aug 11) as a tracked case; revised the carrier-identity conclusion and check-matrix row; added "Cases we're watching" with the pending J.B. Hunt / Borderlanders matter.
- AUG 18, 2026 — Tracker launched with Montgomery, Lipe, Crane, Cox, Miller, and Ye.